French and Americain tastebuds are very different. The amount of sugar my Cali friends can ingest in a pastry usually makes me sick for hours, and the tartness of my favourite fruit preparations is really disgusting to them. I learned to live with that, but it's not always fun. Lucky me my friend Tami cooks with very little sugar, and introduced me to the magic of cupcakes. Individual, tiny, fairy cakes. No, we don't have cupcakes in France! I love the idea. I tried to adapt some French recipes along the way, but in 8 years, even with the enlightened help of Estelle , I found very difficult to find back the taste of my Bonne-Maman cake with American flour and chocolate. I was about to surrender, but then I had a son, and if we wanted to create our own fun family frenco-ricain traditions, we needed the magic of cupcakes. So I tried again and again, added more chocolate, removed some butter, tested baking powders, and in the end I got that French taste I wanted in an American shaped pastry!I didn't translate it. Not because I'm lazy, but because there's very little chance you will like it. This recipe is for French tastebuds who wants to enjoy American traditions. Instead, I made a freebie for you to print, a cupcake recipe card to fill with your very own favorite recipe. Au revoir, and thanks for the cupcakes!

Your recipe sounds perfect for an American trying to cook for German friends. I hope I can get a good enough translation from an online service to be able to make these for them. I can always add something to sweeten my portion, but how lovely it would be to create this for them that they would not find too, too sweet.
Thanks for another lovely blog post!

The main translation problem to me is to translate grams in cups : weights, in volume. But maybe if you have scale with grams? I will try an English translation if I can find a little time to do so

So touched that my cupcakes inspired such a sweet, lovely post. Your recipe sounds almost like a cross between a molten chocolate cake and a flourless chocolate cake, in a mini form, of course. :)

thanks for the inspiration Tami! Actually, due to the large amount of flour, these little cakes are more like a chocolate quarter pound cake or a dense chocolate muffin. You can cook them at a lower temperature and a little less time to have a more moisten center-an adult version of the cake. it's the classic chocolate cake for French children, nothing fancy but full of memories ^^

Ahhh, good to know! :) I love French pound cakes so this is so perfect! What a fun day of celebrating and baking....

The French quatre quart , with it's very simple taste, is quite impossible to reproduce here. I need to test some more flours,and butters. I would have dropped out a while ago whithout your cheerful enthusiam ^^

Thank you! I do have a scale for grams, and with a little help from Google Translate was able to make your cake without translating very much. They turned out perfect, and were enjoyed by my friends. Your inspiration then lead me to modify my banana walnut bread with less sugar and fat, and it, too, was much loved. Thanks so much for a wonderful blog!